Does This Experiment Prove That Violent Games Increase Aggressive Behavior?

In a University of Missouri study sure to be cited by anti-gaming pundits for years to come, researchers provide what could be considered solid proof of the link between violent video games, aggression, and wearing funny hats. Associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri Bruce Bartholow and his colleagues have seen studies claiming…

Get Your Call of Duty: Black Ops PS3 Bundle On Next Week

Sony confirms today that a new PlayStation 3 bundle will go on sale this month—the one we told you about a few weeks ago—one including a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops and a 160GB console. Even better? The $299.99 USD asking price also gets you a “First Strike Content Pack” and a fancy…

What if You Could Play Pool with the Moon or Smash Galaxies Together?

A reader who was tired of my stories about L.A. Noire recently wondered why I hadn’t written about Universe Sandbox. What’s that? A simulation of the universe I can run on a Windows computer? And here I am at work on a Mac? At least I can watch the trailer of this marvelous-looking creation. You…

Will Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Be ‘Better With Kinect’?

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier‘s box art seems to think so, or at least the version uploaded to (and then removed from) Xbox.com today, touting Kinect support for the oft-delayed Tom Clancy game on Xbox 360. Could the delay of Future Soldier to sometime between March 2011 and April 2012 have something to do with Kinect…

The 2011 Into the Pixel Collection Celebrates the Finest in Video Game Art

Every year experts from the fine art world and the interactive entertainment industry bestow upon video game artists the highest honor they can receive — inclusion in the Into the Pixel art collection. Let’s take a look at the seventeen pieces that made the cut this year. The Into the Pixel collection is a joint…

One Year Later, Did Sony Keep Their E3 2010 Promises?

E3 is a den of promises. Promises sell products. And according to the cynics of the world, promises are meant to be broken. Yesterday, we took a look at the promises that Microsoft made at last year’s E3. Today, we scrutinize Sony. Did their PS3 and PSP-related promises bear out, or were we left feeling…

GLaDOS Begins Aural Testing with Free Portal 2 Soundtrack Downloads

While the brilliant and mostly dead scientific minds at Aperture Science aren’t busy coming up with new ways for robots to kill you, they like to kick back and relax with a little testing music. Now you can too, with the first of three “downloadable aural stimulus packages” featuring the music of Portal 2 Get…

The Farmville IPO

Zynga, the Facebook games company and creator of Farmville, is reportedly about to file for an initial public offering of stock. There is no better investment for cynics looking to bet on the exploitation of America’s dumbest, most vulnerable consumers. Zynga rakes in $850 million per year in revenue and $400 million per year in…

BioShock Infinite Propaganda Making 2011 Seem Like a Waste of Time

BioShock Infinite isn’t coming out until next year. That’s a pity, because the people who are making BioShock Infinite keep telling us interesting things about the game. They keep showing us interesting things about the game. Now they’re sharing these new pieces of artwork—ads and propaganda from within the 1912 world of the game. And…

Behold the Shrunken Glory of MineCraft Running on an Android Phone

We’ve all seen the picture, now let’s drool over how well MineCraft Pocket Edition runs on the Xperia Play. Making its big debut at E3 2011 early next month, MineCraft Pocket Edition is the portable block building game you’ve all been waiting for. Shown here running on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, this tiny version of…

Show Her You Love Her With a Pus-Filled Zombie

Women love jewelry. Women love large, shambling, goo-filled undead creatures. Combine the two and you’ve got a one-way ticket to a night of messy romance, thanks to this charming Left 4 Dead Boomer necklace. Video game jewelry artist DeadlyPretty is a big fan of Valve’s Left 4 Dead series, and as it happens she creates…

Aion Stays Alive with Update 2.5

Today NCsoft’s massively-multiplayer online game Aion upgrades to version 2.5, Empyrean Calling, delivering a host of new content, features, and tweaks aimed at pleasing players current and lapsed. Is it enough to lure fresh MMO fans to the game? NCsoft seems to think so, choosing today’s major update as the launching point for the game’s…

The Best Feature of the Xperia Play is Kristen Schaal Acting Ridiculous

Kristen Schaal’s web ads were the highlight of the launch of the Xperia Play, the device previously referred to as the PlayStation Phone. Sony Ericsson prolongs the magic with a series of outtakes from the actress and comedienne’s commercial shoot.

DeathSpank Returns in The Baconing, an Apparently Improved and Ridiculous Sequel

There will be a new DeathSpank game this summer and it will involve a quest for the Fires of Bacon. It will also be a greatly improved follow-up to last year’s downloadable DeathSpank adventures, two comedic riffs on Diablo Like Hothead Games’ previous DeathSpank third-person action games, the new one will put players in charge…

Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville Online

After 34 years as a song enjoyed by drunk people wearing loud Hawaiian shirts, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville becomes a virtual online playground for drunk people wearing loud Hawaiian shirts. No, the Hawaiian shirt is not optional. Magaritaville Online is a virtual buffet of Buffett coming to Facebook and iOS devices this fall courtesy of THQ…

Magaritaville Screens

The Joy of Making Video Gaming a Family Affair

Commenter Madammina‘s tale of playing through Kingdom Hearts with her little brother reminds us how much fun it is to play video games with our loved ones in today’s Speak Up on Kotaku. As very few of you know, I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts with my baby brother. He wanted to play Kingdom Hearts 2…

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Is An Ominous, Imposing and Faithful Bloodbath

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is still a big, thunderous shoot ’em up mixed with Ork-eviscerating action. Not much has changed here: Space Marine is booming, bloody violence in the most unpleasant of alien environments. Our latest hands-off look at Space Marine was much like the last one. We followed hulking Space Marine Captain Titus who…

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Video and Screen Shots

This Is Definitely Not Nintendo’s Project Café

Mario does not approve. Sketch comedy group 20 Second Power-Up created this clip as a sort of “bizarre Marvel Comics ‘What If?’ scenario” celebrating the impending unveiling of the next Nintendo console. Here’s hoping they’re way off the mark.